Samsung and Google should copy Apple’s new AppleCare One

It’s a familiar scenario: the heart-stopping moment your expensive smartphone slips out of your hand or from your pocket. Even as phones become more resilient, they’re still highly vulnerable to accidental damage, making smartphone protection plans a near necessity for many. Major players like phone makers, carriers, and retailers all offer ways to safeguard your device. But Apple is taking a significant leap forward with AppleCare One, a newly announced umbrella plan that covers multiple devices under one subscription. Love it or hate it, AppleCare One does set a new standard that Samsung and Google could well emulate for their own devices.

AppleCare One simplifies protection plan management

Apple has unveiled AppleCare One, an umbrella AppleCare plan that protects multiple Apple products. For $19.99 monthly, Apple users can protect up to three products within one plan. If you have more Apple devices, and chances are that you do if you are dipped in the Apple ecosystem, you can add more for $5.99 per month for each device.

If you trade in a covered device directly to Apple, it is automatically removed from the AppleCare One plan and is replaced with the new device.

AppleCare One includes all of the benefits of AppleCare Plus, including unlimited accident repairs and battery coverage. What’s notable is that AppleCare One also expands theft and loss protection beyond the iPhone to cover the iPad and Apple Watch. Note that the fine print in the screenshot says that users will be allowed three claims under AppleCare One, with claim limits being reset every 12 months.

Since AppleCare One has a singular pricing structure regardless of the product, customers can enroll their iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch to save $11 per month as opposed to enrolling each in separate AppleCare Plus plans.

The cherry on top with AppleCare One is that customers can add products they already own that are up to four years old if they are in good condition (with the exception being headphones that must be less than a year old). Apple already provides a 60-day window post-purchase to add AppleCare Plus, but this window has been significantly expanded with AppleCare One, subject to diagnostic checks. Believe it or not, customers exploit this window to avoid otherwise expensive mistakes with their brand-new phones, so it remains to be seen whether Apple has added any new guardrails here.

Note that users can add only the devices that are present in their Apple account, so this isn’t a family plan.

Samsung and Google offer protection plans in the US through Samsung Care Plus and Google Preferred Care, respectively. However, these plans must be purchased per-product at the time of purchase. Both Samsung and Google have expansive ecosystems of products, and buying a protection plan for each device and keeping track of it is cumbersome. There’s also the matter of device trade-ins, with benefits not passing onto the newly purchased product.

Apple’s AppleCare One solves all of this, and I feel Samsung and Google should come up with a similar umbrella plan to cover all the devices in their respective product ecosystems. If priced right, it can get more people to cover more of their devices, which is a good revenue stream. More importantly, it will simplify the experience for the company’s most loyal fans, and this is the userbase you want to keep the happiest.